How To Fix Facebook: More Nuts
Can it really be this simple?
I was backstage at an event held to raise awareness of the amount of Danielle Steel novels in thrift stores when I was approached by a very discombobulated Tom Bergeron.
He stumbled over to me and stammered,“How do you fix Facebook?”
I put down my Shake Weight and considered for a moment.
“More nuts,” I said, a sudden confidence washing over me. “Much more.”
Tom gave me a long look before nodding his head. He then started to complain about the smell of burnt toast, but I’d stopped listening.
“Of course,” I thought, enamored with the revelation. How could I have been so blind? The antidote to the social media platform’s woes was sitting in a small bowl in front of me the whole time. Pistachio; cashew; macadamia; almond… the list goes on!
The site has certainly had no shortage of scandals this past year, with the “Slappy Bilbo” incident and all the raccoon selfies. Could an infusion of nuts help to plug the dam and prevent another “Lionel Coin Bank” episode from occurring?
Naturally, I needed to confront the experts with my “nut” proposal. I started with Microsoft Inventor and beige sweater Bill Gates.
“Hi, you’ve reached Bill Gates,” he told me in an interview on the subject. “Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you.”
His endorsement left me swooning. But to make certain my theory was as solid as a mixed nut is salty, I needed to continue to climb this ladder of sources; prominent Medium blogger Mitch Albom was the next rung.
“I didn’t order any pizza…,” Mitch told me via intercom from his fourth-floor apartment. “But, golly, what the heck. Come on up and let’s talk about the five people you meet in heaven.” (I declined and considered the matter settled.)
Later that night, as I squatted under the rhododendrons in front of Mark Zuckerberg’s beach house, I began to wonder why I was so driven to find a solution to the “Facebook Problem.” Was it because of my father, Skipper Snipes, who, at the age of 37, invented putting coats on the backs of chairs?
His father before him had also been an innovator, and is credited as the first person to pull a “Down low! Too slow!” in the Polish village of Kokoszkowy (after which he was immediately beaten by the village elders and trampled by horses).
The pressure to live up to their legacy was spawning a fresh gas bubble in me when I spotted Mark McGrath pull up to the beach house and realized I’d once again mixed up my Marks.
“I told you guys, you’ll get your dolls back when I get my thirty dollars,” Mark said, before realizing who it was and sicking his security goons on me.
As the bulky goons chased me around the mulberry bush, I pleaded with Mark to hear me out.
“The nuts, Mark!,” I shrieked. “The nuts can fix Facebook! The nuts, Mark!”
Mark crossed his pale, hairless arms and thought for a moment before holding up his hand to halt his goons.
“Sugar Ray says….nuts?” he said.
“Yes, Mark,” I said, my eyes welling with tears. “Sugar Ray says…nuts.”
Mark made another signal to his goons, and they began walking back to the Toyota they’d arrived in.
“Shut the door, baby,” Mark said, looking back at me. “Don’t say a word.”
With that, they gathered into the car and drove toward the ocean.
Clearly, more nuts had gotten me out of one bind; who’s to say they can’t get Facebook out of another?
An earlier version of this essay appeared in FBI Case File 01112–0527.
